Ouch! Alfalfa hay prices!!

Ann Mary · #1 07/05/08, 12:11 PM

I just called the guy I get alfafla hay from and this year's first cuttings are $180 a ton! 2nd-3rd cutings will be $200 and hay hauled up from Boise this year will be $300 a ton!!! So,...I looked at a part of my lawn that is out of the way with a rather critical eye and decided it would serve me ALOT better if I till it up and plant my own alfalfa/clover mix! (I feed the leaves to the hens and the stalks to the rabbits/goats in the winter). So, thats will be my 'answer' to high hay prices for my little operation. Grow my own, cut it with a hedge trimmer we just bought for cutting grass for 'hay' and then stuff it into feed bags when it it dry since we don't have a baler.I figure I can water it and get three cuttings off it and that would do me just fine. I just hope that it isn't too late in the year to get a plot going so it will be tough enough to overwinter...maybe I can put a little mucch on it this fall to help it make it.

Beef11 · #2 07/05/08, 12:36 PM

You may consider putting a cover crop with it. Plant oats and alfalfa and then cut for hay by next year all that will be left is the alfalfa but your tonnage will be much better than just young alfalfa.

Janis Sauncy · #3 07/05/08, 12:42 PM

Eighteen bucks a bale here! And the gal in the feed store told me it will be going up to over twenty this month.

I expected it to go up; it had to. I didn't expect it to make the quantum leap that it did.

Right now, my goats are only getting a little in the evenings because they have lots of browse, so it's not too bad. It's going to kill me this winter, though.

Janis

Scrounger · #4 07/05/08, 12:54 PM

MAN! Alfalfa is still $3-$5 a bale here, grass hay is still below $3. I don't waste money on aflafa, and am able to grow my own grass, so I'm ok. Even with high fuel prices, hay shouldn't go up THAT high.

Judith · #5 07/05/08, 01:51 PM

Second cut is 380 a ton at the moment I would hate to think what it will be in the fall...

christij · #6 07/05/08, 01:59 PM

$7 a bale here in MO

Janis Sauncy · #7 07/05/08, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by christij

$7 a bale here in MO

Don't make me cry.

Janis

Lizza · #8 07/05/08, 02:06 PM

I too knew it would go up but COME ON. If memory serves it was around $185 about a year and a half ago. It's been heading up past $200 for the last six months and was $235last week. Well, hubby went in to buy a ton and it was $270!!!!

We are selling/giving away all but the essential milk & meat animals for this coming winter.

doulanobles · #9 07/05/08, 02:29 PM

$200 a ton for 1st cutting alfalfa here. Sigh!

Wolf mom · #10 07/05/08, 06:28 PM

$14.50 a 100# bale here right now

Scrounger · #11 07/05/08, 08:54 PM

It's basic robbery. Fuel and other costs haven't gone up THAT much. The producers realize they have you by the "Kahoonies" and take advantage of it.

tomstractormag · #12 07/06/08, 03:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scrounger

It's basic robbery. Fuel and other costs haven't gone up THAT much. The producers realize they have you by the "Kahoonies" and take advantage of it.

I guess that depends on what you call >THAT much<. The price of diesel has more than doubled as well as other petro input costs in the past year.
As I just posted on another post in talking to a farmer that sells hay says he gets $300 to $400 per ton (depending on type) and said he made more money when he sold for less than $100 and inputs were way lower.
He is scaling back his operation because of it.
I got out of >big time farming< in the early 90s one reason being the price of fuel (around a buck) getting too high. Combine used around 88 gal per day. Times that by todays costs... well over $4 now.
Start to see the lack of parity in farm products?
Tom

sidepasser · #13 07/06/08, 04:46 AM

It is not just the fuel prices to run the tractors and equipment, there is also the increased cost of lime, fertilizer (which has almost doubled in price since last year), baling twine and wire, and the "hidden charges" of land taxes, labor costs, and price of keeping the equipment functional.

Throw in a major drought, some California wildfires, and a few floods and you have hay being shipped all over the states which increases it's cost to the buyer as well as making hay scarce in the areas where it was grown.

I don't begrudge my hayman one nickel as I know he is taking a loss this year again due to higher input prices and a drought here in the southeast that has reduced his yield by about half.

Our alfalfa prices run about 18.00 a bale for 60 lb. bales..I don't even buy it anymore as I can't find it for a price I can afford. I buy cubes for 10.99 per 50 lb. bag and soak them to feed the old mare. Much cheaper for me and easier to find.

Scrounger · #14 07/06/08, 05:32 AM

Yeah, the price of fuel and fertilizer has gone up, and a few farmers are realizing that they made more money when prices for corn, etc, were lower, and there are weather issues.
These things should not cause prices to skyrocket like they have been. Some of the reason is artifical. Grass hay has also gone up in places it doesn't need to (locally, both are still reasonable, for the most part) - even in non-drought or wet areas.

Jonaspear · #15 07/06/08, 07:51 AM

Sure, it's robbery, just like when I buy diesel for the tractor, go to the grocery store, or watch a money market account lose value due to inflation. It is a free market, if you don't like the price don't buy it.

We make our own hay and it is a huge amount of work. Add that to the costs involved and I can't really even get back what I have in it. I'm tired of the attitude that if it grows in the ground it should be cheap. This notion has been reinforced by years of artificially low fuel and fertilizer prices.

Hay buyers often aren't reliable either, it's hard to find good ones. They don't show to pick up when they say they will, forcing the hay to be moved multiple times. I'm saving the extra that I make this year until mid-winter when it is going to be very expensive.

KarenCCC · #16 07/06/08, 08:13 AM

I know this is going to make me unpopular...but its about time farmers started getting more money! Still it is the middle-men making more $ off the farmers and consumers, but that is the farmers own fault. I got out of the business of growing produce because prices hadn't changed in five years, some prices actually lowered! Stopped growing hay on our farm and rented the land instead because people didn't want to pay for hay. Many thought it should be next to free! Like Jonaspear said, it's just growing by itself after all! We even had people coming to the farm to help themselves when no one home and every check we ever received bounced! By the way, I have horses and used to have an acre of lawn to mow, now I have an extra acre of pasture! The kids have to play ball in the pasture, just like I did when I was growing up!

Rockin'B · #17 07/06/08, 08:21 AM

Small squares of alfalfa are 3.75 to 4.50 each for 1st cutting this year. We've lost two hay suppliers this year due to them putting the fields into corn. They like grain better than hay now that the price is so high.
It's impossible to rent pasture also. A lot of decent pasture has been turned into marginal corn ground around here.

Scrounger · #18 07/06/08, 08:53 AM

I didn't say it should be free. I AM saying it's over priced.
My neighbor sat down last week and figured out just exactyly what a bale cost him to produce (grass hay). He came up with less then 40¢ a bale.

Of course, his equipment isn't shiney new, and he's never fertilized it. Most of the guys around here are in the same situation.....most......

Others have an $80,000+ tractor pulling a $10,000 rake, $15,000 mower/conditioner, $40,000 baler and have $5000 wagons hauling it in, while the wife brings lunch in a brand new $40,000 pickup.

Then, when they're done, they sit in the coffee shop and complain how they just can't make it....

When you have all that, the price goes up....